The Hollywood swamp may be growing significantly deeper

Jazz ShawPosted at 8:01 am on October 30, 2017

So much for Sunday nights being boring. There was a bombshell accusation made about more sexual assault of the worst kind in Hollywood last night, followed by one of the strangest, most inappropriate responses imaginable. In an interview with Buzzfeed, actor Anthony Rapp accused Kevin Spacey of making unwanted sexual advances on him back in the 80s. The unsavory nature of that allegation becomes exponentially worse when you consider that Rapp was 14 years old at the time.

Kevin Spacey on Sunday responded to accusations that he made a sexual advance on a minor, saying that he didn’t remember the encounter with actor Anthony Rapp but apologized “if I did behave as [Rapp] describes.”

The veteran actor also publicly came out as gay in the same statement he used to address Rapp’s allegations. “This story has encouraged me to address other things about my life,” Spacey said.

In an interview with BuzzFeed published Sunday night, Rapp said he was in Spacey’s apartment for a party in 1986, and at the end of the night, Spacey picked Rapp up, placed him on a bed and climbed on top of him, making an advance. The two had known each other for their Broadway work; Rapp, a child actor at the time, was 14, and Spacey was 26, BuzzFeed reported.

I’m not going to bother including Spacey’s entire statement here. (You can read it at the linked article if you wish.) It basically breaks down into two sections. The first is a claim that he doesn’t remember the incident in question but he’s very sorry if it’s true. He then breaks into a lengthy explanation of how he’s had “relationships” with both men and women over the years and now wishes to come out and live his life as a gay man.

Does Spacey still have an agent? Or for that matter, anyone he could talk to before making statements in public? The point is that I seriously doubt anyone – particularly anyone in Hollywood – is going to have a problem with Spacey being gay. I know I couldn’t care less. But Spacey doesn’t seem to understand that people aren’t upset over his sexual orientation. It’s that you’re being accused of attempting to sexually assault a child.

If you are not, in fact, a pedophile and someone makes that sort of allegation, one would imagine that you would immediately deny it. Spacey is basically responding with an explanation that’s the equivalent of saying, ‘hey man, it was the 80s, ya know? You come on to so many young boys… who can remember? But if Anthony was one of them I’m really sorry.’

Granted, this is all still technically alleged, but as I said above, if Spacey never had any inclinations toward pederasty he should have been able to offer a vehement denial. By basically saying, “Gee, I don’t know. Maybe,” he’s letting the cat out of the bag. If this allegation is true then it’s difficult to imagine that this was a one time thing. Will there be a new #MeToo hashtag trending today with men describing how Spacey attempted to have his way with them when they were children?

Keep in mind that Corey Feldman has been trying to tell people about an active Hollywood pedophile ring for years and now he’s giving interviews and being taken seriously. Will Kevin Spacey become part of that disgusting, criminal tapestry?

In closing, this news comes out at a time when we’re learning all sorts of disturbing things related to this subject. NBC News has completed a new survey which shows that almost half of all working women in the United States claim they’ve been the victims of either sexual assault, harassment or unwanted advances. I think a lot of us knew there was a problem, but not of this scope. Simply staggering.